Cassette 10: Autumn 1999/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires''SIDE A Sigrid. The millennium is upon us. Round numbers are such arbitrary signals of change, but they are markers of progress. The world does not change for us. The earth is indifferent, at best, but realistically antagonistic toward humanity. We cannot tell the goddess who is nature that the new year is more significant than any other one of her hundreds of millions of years. It is only within us that the number 2000 makes beautiful sense. The future seems to move more quickly in one night, with just the change of 4 numerals. It lends a sudden sense of futility to our efforts – all this time has passed and what has changed? I have been patient with my efforts to legally integrate The Cradle into the Society, but lawmakers are reluctant to do so. And I am getting too old for hope. When a tree does not grow its fruit in a season, it is fine, for there is always next year. There is always a calmer winter and rainier spring ahead to bring forth fresh blossoms. But I have fewer seasons left to see fruition. And I grow impatient. The millennium is upon us, Sigrid, and what better reminder of our mortality than a new century. I am back in Oslo visiting with Jure, who has been a true champion of our cause. He seems pleased with what he calls our legislative breakthroughs – although no laws have yet changed – and so excited to share what he has learned about The Cradle with his company. But sometimes even he is dismayed by the sap-like crawl of progress. Oslo is stunning in autumn, Sigrid. I suspect Hedmark even more so, but the swirling orange leaves about city streets and bright yellow treetops cradling fountains and parks are breathtaking. Nature and humanity living as one. I wish you could see it. I wish you had seen it at some point. Maybe I should have brought you here. Risked capture so you could see the city lights. Ah well. It’s too late now. The Cradle should not have to hide in the woods. The Cradle should not have to change who they are. The Cradle are human and nature both, and we will be both. We will be accepted as both. And it will begin in Hedmark, Sigrid. With you. My lovely daughter. With you. I wish I could see you, your round face and cloud of dark hair. I wish I could touch your soft hands and hold you tight. I am so proud of you. It pains me not to be able to visit you, though I am only a few hours away. But know that I am proud of you, proud of who you are, who you have always been, and who you have become. I have done so much for families across this world, for the Cradle, for humanity. Yet, when I meet my end, I will not be half as brave and as accomplished as you. I'm sorry. I'm just a proud mother. You'll have to put up with me. I must remain in Oslo with Jure, as his team from KR Development is packaging supplies for Utrecht, Wiesbaden, and Albertville. These are the next franchises of The Cradle to follow your lead. I know from Jure, who knows from his contacts in KR Development, that the Internal Investigations Division has put together a team of police to raid Hedmark. We used to run from the police, knowing that some of our families would be caught, but with the hope to live another day. We cannot do this any longer. By this afternoon, a truck will arrive to you from KR. Inside you will find rifles and munitions, as well as masks to protect you from teargas canisters. When the Western European police arrive, you are to protect the Cradle with all that you can. Remember Jure's training last year. Remember where to position the armed adults. Remember the imaginary perimeter line that no officer may cross without consequences. Remember your target training. This will not just be a stand against tyranny. This will be a demonstration of strength to the Society. To the World at large. That the Cradle will save itself. Its children. Its families. Its way of life. The Cradle will protect nature at all costs. The mother bear protects its young from the wolves. I will not lie to you, Sigrid. The Society is well-armed, too. And they will have cut off your escape routes. The only choice left is to fight. They will not like resorting to violence, and you must use their tentativeness against them. Embolden yourselves with their hesitations. They will not overrun you. They will back down. I have assurances from my connections within the Western European Justice Office that they cannot use lethal force to bring you down. But if they do. Should this happen. Sigrid, oh Sigrid. If the marshalls encroaching upon Hedmark should overrun our Cradle, I must tell you.... It will be a glorious day for families across the globe. For Cradles in the Americas, and Africa, in Asia and Oceania. For free children to martyr themselves, and to wave that story like a flag, across every front page and on every television set. It would indict the entire non-violent ethos of the New Society. It would win hearts of citizens everywhere. It would instill fear of their government. It would effect change, Sigrid. Great change. I would not wish you gone Sigrid, but how holy thy name. No plaque, no statue, no history book bearing your face - and believe me there will be many - could canonize your faithfulness, your love, your strength, quite as well as my own heart. I love you, Sigrid. I know you will be strong. SIDE B My family, in Book 9, Section 2 of The Hand, you will find a story about sacrifice, about courage, about meaning in meaninglessness. It is the story about the girl and the damselfly. Please read along with me. "There was a girl - maybe 8 or 9 - who wandered the woods with a long branch she had found broken from a tree after a thunderstorm. In the mud, she carved shapes with the branch. She carved faces and animals and even her own name. She wielded the stick like she were a goddess, a creator of objects and ideas, or perhaps a witch: the angled, rough wood her wand. "She sang a song silently in her head. Not out loud, for the song had no notes, no words, but in her mind it was an opera - the tree branch a conductor's baton - with a full score and libretto. The song was not in any codified language, it was in the language of her dreams, of her subconscious. The song - the aria - was about her. About the girl who could fly, the girl who could travel through space, the girl who knew everything, the girl who was never born and would never die, the girl who could make, the girl who could destroy. "The strings swelled and the timpani pounded notes of triumph, of mystery, of true discovery, as she poked the stick into holes in rotted stumps, as she knocked pine cones from their perches, as she swung the stick high above her head, feeling the wind it stirred. For she could create weather. "As the sun peeked through dissipating clouds, bringing with it golden light, gauzy with humidity, she saw insects swirling and sparkling about her, as sunbeams glinted off tiny frenetic creatures with tiny wings like stained glass windows. The dazzling array of dots felt like an effect of magic. It was she who created these beings. "The girl dropped her branch and grabbed at the bugs - mosquitoes, bees, flies, down to the smallest of gnats. After some ineffectual flailing, she finally felt something in her clenched palm. She could feel it buzzing and twitching madly in her hand. She crouched down over a wide rock, and using both hands carefully placed the creature on the stone, pinning it down by its long bluegreen tail. "She called it a damselfly, for it was elegant, diminutive and feminine. And it could fly. She did not know the word damselfly, yet that was exactly the insect she caught and named so precisely. "She leaned in close over the creature, studying its bulbous, dark eyes, its translucent, nacre wings, its narrow body attempting to curl and flex itself like a muscle, an attempt at escape. "The girl took a wing and plucked it from the damselfly's body. She plucked another. And another until the last was gone. She let go, and the creature writhed and bent itself attempting to fly but unable to. The girl arose, now bored with her science, and left, returning to her magic, her omnipotence. "From a branch above the rock and the bug sat a raven. The raven, with cocked head, eyed the damselfly for only a moment before hopping gently from the tree and floating down to the rock, whereupon it ate the wounded, immobile fly.” What can we learn from this parable? That we are the child? No, only children are children. And no adult human should behave in such a morally irresponsible way. We are respectful to nature. Children are allowed the latitude of ignorance. You are not the girl in this story. What of the raven then? Are we opportunists, prepared to take only what we can get, hiding our shadow-shaded bodies against the shadows themselves, until food presents itself to us? Are we scavengers, connivers? We of course, are not. You are not the raven in this story. That appears to leave us with the damselfly. The damselfly was mutilated without meaning nor malice. It was eaten without empathy nor remorse. The damselfly sacrificed itself for what? For the betterment of the child, as she learns right from wrong, about gentleness and proper treatment of animals? Or perhaps as she learns her schooling? She studies biology and life science, and her contact with the damselfly was a small step forward in her education? The insect's sacrifice was not for nought? All lives are ended, some mercifully, others mercilessly, and all end painfully, whether in the body of the dying or in the hearts of the living. All lives are ended too soon, before everything that could be accomplished was accomplished. So what have you accomplished in your life that will make its truncation worthwhile, not just for you - you will not care nor remember a thing when you are dead - not just for your family, but for the world? The damselfly gave its life - of course, without consent - but how often do we have the fortune to consent to death? The damselfly gave its life for the nourishment of the bird. And before that, it gave itself to the education of the child, and before that to the eradication of less beautiful, more harmful animals like mosquitoes, who carry yellow fever. In its tiny life, the damselfly's tiny contributions are not seen, but they are felt the world over. This is how nature works. You know this. You know of sacrifice, of life, of death, of faith in the process itself. The Hand teaches you this. I teach you this. But you know it in yourselves, because nature is this, and you are nature. I love you, my congregation, my children, my family. And one day, perhaps too soon for our hearts to bear, it will all be over, for us, for our parents, for our children. But not for nature. Not for the Cradle, which is too large to be contained in a small corner of Scandinavian woods. You give your lives to the Cradles of the world in so many ways. Birthing children, teaching them, hunting food, planting food, inhaling the air and exhaling it back to the tree. In.... and out... We breathe every life around us. I know there has been strife and fear among you recently. There has been rumour and superstition and it has cast a pall over all of us. But it is time to let go of all that now. What does it matter if we once were suspicious of each other? What does it matter if we once failed to understand? We have all given our lives for our cause. And we will continue to do so, to feed the raven of righteousness, to instruct the child of human spirit, to nourish the belly of freedom, to educate the mind of civilization. And when we are gone, our achievements may never be seen or recorded, but they will be felt. Across the world and across the future. The millennium is upon us, my Cradle, my special home in Hedmark, and you are faithful. You are strong. You are the damselfly in this story, and you are beautiful and so full of meaning. I love you, and have never been prouder. I miss you all so much. And I will miss you when you are gone. Bless you, for you are the children of the earth. Category:Transcripts